A guy has a donkey and he uses, like, a car and he goes to the market a-and he puts rice, and you know and everything from the market on the donkey’s back. But as their walking the donkey’s just like super tired, so then he feels bad for the donkey, so he’s like “oh I’ll alleviate the weight for him” so he picks the donkey up and carries him up. (Quiet laughter)

Context:

For this performance, the speaker announced that they had a joke to share, although they jokingly insisted that it was “not a very good joke”. Nonetheless, there was quiet laughter after the joke was said. 

Personal Thoughts:

This is a joke with a unique structure, having a bit more length to it than other Western jokes. The punchline is also not as direct, focusing more on having the audience think about the punchline than it be directly said. The joke’s punchline focuses on the man taking a completely different route to get to the same conclusion, which is in this case, alleviating pain from the donkey. That being said, this is where the core of the humor of this joke is, as the humor is not in visualizing a man picking up a donkey, but the fact that the man thinks to carry the donkey rather than remove items. It is interesting to see how this joke translates in a room with many non-American audience members, as this joke heavily relies on understanding the irony in the language, which might explain the quiet laughter rather than a laugh-out-loud moment that would indicate that the joke is understood.